The tourism promotion programme has been kicked off, but tours remain unattractive to travellers as tour fee reductions have been minimal.

Booking tours

HCM City-based Hoa Binh Travel Firm said that outbound tours have seen the sharpest tour fee reductions. Travellers going to China, for example, now enjoy the fee reduction of $100 per person ($638), while those going to Thailand, the reduction of $30 ($298), and to Malaysia, $40 ($358).

Pham Thi Thu, Head of the Outbound Travel Division under Saigontourist, said that tour fee reductions of 10-15% have been applied to Saigontourist’s outbound tours since mid February. Especially, long-distance tours have seen sharp fee reductions, from $3,700 to $2,600 to go the US, and from $2,700 to $1,990 to go to Australia.

As for domestic tours, only those involving air travel have seen fee reductions. According to Ly Tat Vinh, Head of the Business Planning Division under Cho Long Tourist Company, some airlines have slashed airfares by 20-30%, which has helped travel agencies cut tour fees accordingly (airfares account for 30-50% of tour costs).

Vinh said that tour fee reductions have also been applied to overland domestic tours, but the reductions prove to be insignificant, just 5%. It is because expenses for rooms, meals and transportation remain relatively high.

Pham Duc Hoa, Deputy Head of Domestic Travel Division under Saigontourist, also said that the firm’s tours with air travel have seen costs cut by 35%, while overland tours have just seen the modest reduction of 5%.

The modest tour fee reductions, which are far below expectations, are not encouraging anyone to go travelling at this moment. Vinh from Cho Lon Tourist said that the number of travellers has increased by a little, but the current figure still represents a 15-20% decrease from this time last year.

Travel firms, when asked about the implementation of the ‘Impressive Vietnam’ tourism promotion programme, said that they really want to join the programme to attract more travellers, but they cannot effectively implement the programme as the fees of many services remain sky high.

Director of Lua Viet Travel Firm Nguyen Van My said that it is very difficult to cut tour fees by the 30-50% suggested by the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism. To date, only several hotels have agreed on 5-10% room rate reductions, but the reductions have been applied to less than 30% of their rooms.

Travel firms hope that they will have more clients on the April 30-May 1 holiday, as enterprises will organise collective trips for this 4-day holiday. However, they are worried that hotel room rates and meal service fees will increase on the holiday, making it impossible for them to maintain the current tour fees.

Sources say that hotels in Nha Trang city and Da Lat all have raised hotel room rates for the holiday. One month ago, the room rates were about VND450,000-500,000/room/night, while the rates have surged to VND550,000-600,000. Meanwhile, bus owners have not announced official bus leasing fees yet, saying that they will not release fees until just several days before the holiday.

VietNamNet/NLD